


through a glass darkly

by starling



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 16:10:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19930834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starling/pseuds/starling
Summary: He reached his hand down to feel around for any food, but felt only the hand mirror that had lived on this floor for some few months now: the one thing of Hal’s that he hadn’t sold or thrown away yet.  Yet.





	through a glass darkly

There was a time Poins had thought himself an alchemist, drawing something precious from Hal, some rare sight only for his eyes. But he came to know that he and the rest were baseness to Hal: poison to be tasted but never swallowed, an architect’s idle sketch, a shadow court in which to practice in lieu of the dawn. 

Hal brooked no weaknesses in himself: Poins watched him destroy his weaknesses, seek out those parts of his soul that threatened his state, and destroy them one by one. Poins watched Hal destroy his weaknesses, and knew he did not have long. After Shrewsbury, the fear only grew: certain of the ending, but uncertain of the timing, measuring risk against joy and every time choosing to stay just a while longer. He measured its expression carefully, in mimicry of the prince, and set himself in diligent study of the man whose shadow he was always proud to be.

This is why, of all of them, Poins was never banished. Poins was the cleverest of them all, and Poins left before it came to that.

__

It was mid-afternoon by the time Poins stirred, head pounding and memory mercilessly faultless. The other side of the bed was cold: the girl, whoever she’d been, must have been long gone. He reached his hand down to feel around for any food, but felt only the hand mirror that had lived on this floor for some few months now: the one thing of Hal’s that he hadn’t sold or thrown away yet. Yet.

He looked in it often, sometimes with the vague hope that it would have saved something of Hal’s face. What would the mirror remember, though? All those dishevelled times - Hal yawning first thing in the morning, Hal hungover, Hal drunk, Hal with sack or sick or something worse in his hair? Hal checking that he was just outrageous enough to shock the court, but just acceptable enough that the Church would one day let it go? Or would the mirror remember Hal before battle, shining and fearless, unburdened by England’s hopes but ready to earn the right to them? Hal when he was swallowed up by his father’s crown, and turned away his Eastcheap crowd for good?

Neither, of course. The mirror didn’t remember the Hal that Poins knew or the Hal that was: it remembered nothing, but showed Poins as he was now: weighed down by the bleary-eyed sadness of a man who has been giddy with women and sack and carelessness, but has found them vanished in the harsh light of the morning.

“Bugger,” he said, realising something that had been a long time coming. "I’m like thin Falstaff.“ 

And with that realisation, the day was already too awful to face. He dropped the mirror on the floor, kicked it under the bed, and collapsed into the sheets again, rolling over to turn his back on the sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> I found this on my tumblr - I wrote it five years ago, can you believe it ! I feel as though I've barely aged in that time.


End file.
